Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Verbal notes recorded by Doctor Madeline Fenton, Spring 2005

08:37. Alright, we just decanted Subject EM out of Fenton Thermos into the test chamber. Subject EM appears to be swearing, though the chamber is soundproof so we can't be sure, but it’s absolutely raising its middle fingers. Mechanical sensors show infrasonic vibrations, steadily increasing in hertz - oh, it's singing! Subject EM must be trying to determine resonant frequency of the test chamber! Okay, deploy the ectofidine now, then. Shame, we wanted to observe it a while longer. Alas, no plan survives contact with the enemy. We will consider more irregularly shaped containment devices and re-examine the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse. Look at that, the infrasound has ceased and Subject EM is growing lethargic. 

8:55. Ectofidine took effect faster on Subject EM than on blob ghosts, that’s interesting. Perhaps related to more elaborate mimicry of animal physiology? Subject EM is fully unresponsive. Due to Danny's incident last weekend we believe ectofidine may have a sedative effect on sensitive humans; so we’ve got extra respiratory protection on top of our suits. Let’s tie this ghost up! 

09:01. Subject EM is restrained to the operating table and it’s still out like a light. Surgical exploration begins now.

09:03. Subject EM’s similarity to a human ends immediately past the skin; the mouth and throat anatomy are very weird and complex. It’s got a very flexible, muscular soft palate, and the texture of the teeth is strange… Wow, do you hear that? They ring, like little singing bowls! How interesting!

09:12. Subject EM has a simplified system of sinuses and a trachea, but no lungs. It seems the respiratory anatomy is really just for vocalizing, which makes sense; it’s not like it’s actually breathing. What is that? I’ve never seen anything quite like this organ we just found in the subject’s throat, it’s about the size of a baby’s fist and almost a perfect cube, with beveled edges. We should take that out to look at under the microscope later.

09:13. By maneuvering the surrounding pseudo-muscles, we have determined that the cube-shaped organ is a larynx. Ghosts have literal voice boxes! Is it just me or do ghosts seem to have a thing about puns?

09:18. We have discovered a second voice box! Do all ghosts have two, or just Subject EM because of its specialization in vocal hypnosis? The second larynx and the especially flexible mouth indicate advanced ability for throat singing, overtone singing, and similar techniques. And probably some that humans can’t do at all! The folklorists will surely want to comb through the superstitions of cultures that practice that, I suppose. We’re going to take out both voice boxes to compare them. 

09:24. When we removed the first larynx, we discovered that the interior is full of delicate structures that look like mushroom gills. It’s infinitely more complex than a human larynx. We’re taking the second one now and - hello! Subject EM stopped glowing as soon as we fully separated both voice boxes. I guess that’s a point in favor of Obsession Theory, congratulations to you guys. Let’s reassemble it a bit, then, I want to watch it “fade” and see if that’s any different from destabilizing. 

09:47. Subject EM is reassembled and left alone in the test chamber. We are turning off the ectofidine. 

11:18. Well… Sometimes science is about having a clusterfuck and writing down what happens, isn't it? Subject EM typically generates heat equivalent to a small campfire, so we didn't bother with much fire protection; we thought the sprinklers we already have would be adequate. When the ectofidine wore off and Subject EM discovered it couldn't vocalize, it raised its temperature high enough to immediately melt the test chamber, and then it fled through the Fenton Portal. Our thermometers measured 1500 degrees Celsius before they broke, which is well over the temperature of the hottest wildfires in history. That’s what we get for underestimating a ghost! They’re just as dangerous when they’re cornered as any other wild animal. 

Chapter Text

A spring day in Amity Park.

“Is it just me or does the house look… smokey?” Danny asked as Jazz turned her car onto their street. 

“It definitely looks smokey.” She parked in the driveway and they cautiously approached the front door. They elbowed at each other a little bit to be the first one inside, but Jazz kicked him in the back of the knee so she could push ahead, just in case their parents made something that would be dangerous for Danny. 

“Ow, jeez, I love you too, Jazz!” 

Jazz ignored him and sniffed the air. Something had set off the Fenton fire suppression system, and she smelled burnt plastic of the sort that only burned at really high temperatures. “Mom? Dad? What did you guys blow up this time?” Hopefully nothing in the kitchen, or they’d have to put all their food in the hazmat disposal again. 

“Now, now, Jazzypants, we didn’t blow up anything!” Jack shouted as he charged up the stairs, followed by Maddie. “It was a ghost who tried to vaporize us.”

“It was honestly impressive,” Maddie chirped, “we’re lucky we were wearing masks to protect against the ectofidine, or else it probably would have burned our faces off.”

“And that’s why you never underestimate a ghost, even when you’ve got it in a corner. Ghosts don’t think , or feel, they’re pure id, so they don’t have any cognitive processes to hold them back when their fight or flight instincts kick in. See kids, even us parents learn something new every day.” 

Okay. So they had caught a ghost with fire powers - which one? Jazz glanced at Danny. He was definitely green. There were a lot of ghosts with fire powers that hung around Amity Park. She didn’t want to know which one her parents had gotten. She needed to know more than she’d ever needed anything. “Who… which ghost did you, uh, investigate?” 

“The one that pretends to be a rock star. The vocal anatomy is spectacular , just the voice boxes we cut out are going to turn into months of research!”

Danny made a series of faces like he threw up in his mouth a little bit. “Wow, would you look at that, I just realized I left some stuff at Tucker’s house, I’m gonna go get that now bye.” He turned stiffly on his heel and walked out the front door. Jazz couldn’t blame him.

“It was incredible, as soon as the ectofidine wore off and it realized it couldn’t make noise, it just- fwoosh! ” Jack raised his arms in exploding gestures, miming a mushroom cloud. “And then it skittered off into the Ghost Zone while we were still figuring out who turned the oven on.”

Jazz nodded. So Ember was no more. That should have been a relief; Ember was scary scary, not silly scary like the Box Ghost, but… “But isn’t singing her whole thing? Doesn’t that seem inhumane?” Jazz couldn’t think of a more devastating way to go out. 

Maddie tutted disapprovingly. “We’re talking about ghosts , sweetheart. There is no humane with ghosts. Really, I’m disappointed we didn’t get to watch it fade!” 

Jazz looked at her shoes. “That must have been very hard for you,” she muttered.

“Oh, sweetie . You’re such a sensitive girl…”

“Which is a good thing!” Jack chirped.

“Yes, yes, it’s a good thing! But what I’m saying is, I know you don’t have the heart for some of our work, and that’s okay.” Maddie hugged her. “It takes all kinds, and somebody has to treat everybody’s trauma from the ghost attacks while we do the real sci-”

Jazz ducked out of her arms and went upstairs without a word. Nope . Not gonna dignify that with listening to the last syllable, let alone a response. Part of her was relieved that she didn’t have to fear another mind-control concert, but what a terrible way to be destroyed.

—

Tucker’s parents were both at work, so Danny bypassed the door and phased straight into his basement bedroom. 

“Uh, hi?”

“I officially can’t tell my parents I’m Phantom.”

Tucker’s eyes widened. “Shit, dude, what happened?” 

Danny sat down heavily on Tucker’s bed. He felt himself shivering. “You don’t want to know.” 

—

Sam listened to Danny explain what his parents did to Ember. And then she sat and thought about it. And thought, and thought. “Well, obviously we can’t let your parents find out you’re Phantom,” she said eventually. “And… I think we need to stop letting other ghosts come here, for their safety.” Danny and Tucker agreed, and that was that. 

—

A new family was moving to Amity Park, and Jazz volunteered herself to help them unload the U-Haul so they would be nearby when the Box Ghost inevitably showed up. (Sam and Tucker volunteered themselves for the same reason.) Between the family, their friends from home, and various Amity Parkers, about twenty people were present and they almost had the move finished when the Box Ghost appeared over the front porch. 

Jazz held up an empty box and waved it awkwardly. “Hey! Boxy, we need to talk, you can’t come around here anymore!” 

“THE BOX GHOST FEARS NO PROPERTY LINE!”

“That’s great, but the Box Ghost really needs to start fearing the ghost hunters for his own safety.” Jazz went closer and grabbed his ankle, which surprised him enough to get his attention. “There’s information you need to know,” she hissed. “Something happened…” she glanced at the new neighbors. “If you get caught by anyone other than Phantom, it’ll be really bad, I swear.” 

The Box Ghost squinted at her. The only other people in town who would try to catch him were her parents, and she was pretty sure the ghosts knew the Fenton family. Phantom crested over the roof then and seized him by the collar. “We need to talk,” he growled, and they disappeared.

Several houses in Amity Park were vacated soon after the portal opened, Phantom dragged the Box Ghost into one of those. Specifically, he dragged him into a windowless attic where they wouldn’t be observed. Sam and Tucker had apparently coordinated with Danny exactly what attic he was going to drag the Box Ghost into, and picked the lock ahead of time. Kindly, they took Jazz with them.

The Box Ghost peered at him curiously. “You’re acting extra weird today, kid,” he said in a low voice. 

“Don’t call me kid!” Phantom snapped in a whisper. “Look, the Fentons don’t care that you’re a person, they don’t care that you can talk and feel things and shit, and if they get their hands on you that’s the end of the Box Ghost, do you understand me?”

The Box Ghost looked skeptical. “Yeah… sorry, pal, but Mister Can’t Aim For Shit and Missus Can’t Teach Him To Aim don’t really scare me.” 

“Yeah, well, they didn’t used to scare me either, but shit changed , Boxy. They caught Ember and fucking dissected her throat.” 

The Box Ghost blinked, and then snorted. “Bullshit.”

“Excuse me?” Jazz hissed.

The Box Ghost just raised an eyebrow at her. “Have you met Ember? I know you’ve met the Fenton docs - sorry about that by the way, talk about bad cosmic luck. Anyway, there’s no way those doofuses could catch that crazy pirate bitch and actually hurt her in a way that’d stick. Maybe if they teamed up with some of the, I dunno, eleventy hundred ghosts she has beef with, but that doesn’t seem likely, does it? I heard a rumor that girl can flash cremate a human if you piss her off enough.” 

“She certainly tried,” Danny growled. “But she was already destabilizing from having her vocal cords cut out of her neck .” 

“We have pictures,” Jazz said quietly. “We have proof.” She’d gone into her parents computer to find them, despite how badly she didn’t want to see them, in case of this exact scenario. The Box Ghost, still doubtful, held out his hand and she passed them over. He turned… a lot of different colors as he went through the photographs. Ember, unconscious. Ember, with her mouth and throat cut open. The voice boxes, in her throat, the voice boxes in petri dishes. They were awful, and Jazz had been very careful not to let anybody else see them. There was no need for the others to have the nightmares she’d been having. 

“ Fuck ,” the Box Ghost muttered. “There are some crazy stories in the Ghost Zone about that girl. I never thought Ember - that’s fucking brutal , dude.” He passed the photos back, and turned thoughtfully to Danny. “You know, Phantom,” he began, then glanced at Jazz. She realized that the other ghosts probably didn’t know she knew Danny’s secret (how could they? Danny didn’t know she knew Danny’s secret) because he chose his next words very carefully. “If Amity Park isn’t safe for the rest of us, it isn’t safe for you either. We got an honor code, us ghosts, about ghost hunters. If you need to, uh, relocate your lair further from the portal, or something, even assholes like Skulker would watch your back from the Fentons.” 

Danny’s eye twitched. “Thanks for the offer, I’m good. If you wanna pay it forward? Tell everybody who’ll listen what we told you today. No more ghosts in Amity Park. I’ll be the last one out.” 

The Box Ghost clearly didn’t approve, but was also clearly unwilling to argue the point in front of Jazz. “Deal,” he said, and disappeared. 

—

And that was that. All the frequent fliers, and the less frequent fliers, were warned off of Amity Park. The few thrillseeking idiots who came to challenge themselves against the now-legendary Fentons were escorted back through the portal with ruthless efficiency. Phantom made fewer appearances, no more flying for the sake of speed or pranking the A-listers or anything , other than warding off other ghosts. Danny’s grades were back up, and their parents were glad for that, but Jazz had never seen him so sad. By the time summer break rolled around, there were no ghosts in Amity Park at all. 

—

Jazz was up late. It was summer break, so it didn’t matter, and she had overheard Danny confiding in his friends over a game of Doomed that he felt itchy without using his ghost powers, and it was past two in the morning so he was going to go flying for a little while. Their parents were asleep for once, but the first ping on the ghost detector in nearly a month woke them up. As soon as they were awake and gearing up for a hunt, Jazz went into Danny’s room and futzed with the video game until she figured out how to warn Sam and Tucker that the elder Fentons were on the loose, and then she hoped that they wouldn’t manage to catch Danny. 

They wouldn’t manage to catch Danny, surely. All the other ghosts were surprised that they managed to catch Ember, let alone hurt her, and Danny had beaten her twice, so surely he would be even harder to catch, right? He would be fine. Tucker would do some technobabble wizardry with his PDA to get a signal out, or Sam would just straight up steal her parents’ car and warn him in person, and Danny would slip back into his room and his human face in time and everything would be okay. 

A little before three in the morning, her parents burst back into the house. 

“WE DID IT!” Jack and Maddie bellowed. Jazz realized that, at some point in the past few months, she had stopped thinking of them as Mom and Dad. More importantly, Jack and Maddie had caught her baby brother. 

Jack and Maddie caught Danny. They were shouting as much in the front doorway, slamming the door open and letting it slam shut behind them. Jack and Maddie had Jazz’s baby brother . Jazz stalked down the stairs before she realized what she was doing, and she didn’t notice that she grabbed a pair of scissors off her desk on the way down. She was so angry she didn’t have room for thought, only the idea that she needed to trick Danny out of their grasp, and if she couldn’t, she just might kill them. Normally her thoughts raced and swirled around themselves at breathtaking speed. The clarity was actually kind of nice. 

“Jazzypants, you’ll never believe it! We finally caught Phantom!” Jack bellowed, waving a Thermos in the air. Jazz’s eyes locked on it. That Thermos had her brother in it, and she would get it out of their hands. End of story. 

“After a month of no ghost sightings at all, we thought it might never happen!” Maddie gushed.

“I’m the reason why there’s been no ghosts for you to study.” 

Jack and Maddie blinked. “Huh?” They asked, tilting their heads in unison like a couple of dogs. An insult to dogs, honestly. 

“I’m the reason why there’s been no ghosts,” Jazz repeated calmly. She wrenched her eyes off the Thermos. Keep it in your peripheral vision, but don’t let them know what your target is , whispered the memory of Maddie teaching her how to steal a ghost artifact from a rival researcher in case the other scientist wouldn’t let them buy it. Don’t let them get a word in edgewise, urged the memory of Jack explaining the finer points of his ‘absentminded professor’ act for law enforcement who took issue with trespassing in the name of science. “I went into your lab and stole copies of the photos you took when you dissected Ember, and then I showed them to every ghost who showed up in town so they would know to avoid you, because I don’t want you to do that ever again.”

Maddie gasped and clasped her hand to her chest, clutching invisible pearls. “Jasmine Kate Fenton!” 

“You would really sabotage us like that?” Jack pouted.

“I would, I did, and I’d do it again,” Jazz growled. “The things you do for your research are wrong . I’m tired of living in a house where you hurt people.” 

“They’re not people-”

“They don’t feel pain-”

“They used to think babies didn’t feel pain!” Jazz shouted over them. “They didn’t decide it was unethical to operate on babies without anesthesia until fucking 1987! That was only eighteen years ago, I have classmates that were alive when doctors got that through their thick stupid heads!”

Jack set the Thermos down on the dining room table, and Jazz took a quarter of a step sideways, towards the table. “That’s not the same,” he said sternly.

“It’s close enough!” Jack and Maddie unconsciously took quarter steps sideways to keep facing her, and Jazz inched that much closer to the table again. “You’re just like mad scientists in a comic book, you even pick your victims like them, don’t you? Only instead of kidnapping homeless people the cops won’t look for, you torture people that are already dead!” 

“Jasmine, what has gotten into you?” Maddie asked.

“Fucking ethics! It’s a damn pity that the law hasn’t caught up to morals and made it illegal to experiment on the dead. Maybe I should give up psychology and become a Senator!” She kept talking automatically, saying words as they came into her head as she edged closer and closer to the table and the Thermos. Her car keys were on a hook next to the front door, which was still cracked open. “Actually, it is illegal to experiment on the dead, and it’s not like you only hunt ghosts, is it? Have you been getting the right permits to take tissue samples from the morgue to test for ectoplasm content? Do the authorities even know you’re doing that? I bet the publishers at Ecto Quarterly and the Journal of Post Mortem Biology don’t know, and I know how to use a phone book!” 

Jack and Maddie both went pale. “Jazzypants, you wouldn’t -”

“Maybe I would, maybe I will. I’m almost eighteen, I could sue you for custody of Danny, and I bet the court would just love to hear about all the times you took us camping and then left us alone in the woods at night so you could go violate allegedly haunted cemeteries.” Shit, she had forgotten about those incidents until now. Cold rage was a hell of a drug for repressed memories, apparently. She was almost to the Thermos. “In fact, I could go to the news station and tell Lance Thunder all about it right now and Aunt Alicia could take Danny and I!” 

Jazz must have had something manic in her eye, because Maddie finally noticed the scissors in her hand. “Jasmine, I think you’re not well,” she said, and moved towards her. Jazz swiped wildly with the scissors and hit nothing but air, but it was enough of a shock to her and Jack that she had time to grab the Thermos, her keys, and race out to her car. She was out of the driveway and down the street before her parents were out the door. Jazz just drove , paying no attention to where she was going, and held the Thermos between her knees so she could open it with one hand. 

Danny burst out and had to cling to the passenger seat until his tangibility caught up to him. “Jazz? What the hell is going on?” 

“You tell me , you stupid little piece of shit!” Jazz screeched. “What the fuck happened to no more ghosts in Amity Park? Are you trying to get yourself killed again ? Well? ANSWER ME!” 

Danny gaped at her. “Holy shit I’ve never heard you swear before…” 

“Oh my God.” Jazz took the inadvertent hint, though, and made herself take a deep breath and actually register her surroundings. Jesus Christ, she was doing 60 in a 30, time to calm down Jazz . She came to a stop in the parking lot of a grocery store, and then thought better of it and cut her headlights, went behind the store, and parked the car under as much cover as she could find. “You need to get out of here before Jack and Maddie dissect you.”

“ Since when are they Jack and Maddie to you?” Danny muttered.

“I kind of sort of just threatened to tell the police, the press, and the editors of the ectoscience journals about all the unethical things they do.” 

Danny stared at her, eyes like dinner plates. “You didn’t.”

“I did.” 

He stared into the darkness ahead of them for a while, and Jazz avoided the uncanny thought that he could see much further into the shadows than she could. “That’s… fucking awesome.” 

“Language.” 

“Seriously? So… you and your parents must be seriously peeved at each other… are you gonna go back there tonight?”

Jazz groaned under the weight of realization. She had raised the nuclear option, and the consequences might be radioactive. “Fuck. Fuck . I’ll have to eventually, because my stuff and my little brother are there, and I need to do my senior year… but not tonight. I’m not going back tonight, I have a spare blanket in the trunk for winter, I will sleep in the car.” 

Danny rolled his eyes. “Don’t be a fucking hero, you’re stealing my schtick. Go to Sam Manson’s house and crash there, she has like a million guest rooms. I’ll phase your car through the gate, you need directions?” 

“Fine. Put on a seatbelt, though.”

“Really?”

“Put on the seatbelt, or we stay right here.” 

Danny rolled his eyes, but obeyed. “You’re a good big sister,” he grumbled, with far too much sincerity for someone who was supposed to be a near-stranger. Truly, it was a miracle their parents hadn’t figured him out and done anything terrible. 

True to his word, Danny got them into the Manson house. Sam got one look at them and hugged them both with a death grip before dragging them to a large, opulent guest room with two beds. Tucker was already sitting in one, tapping aggressively on his PDA, with a duffel bag sitting on the floor beside him. “Tuck, we got him.” 

Tucker looked up, and stress melted off his face when he saw Danny unharmed. “Oh, thank fuck ,” he gasped, leaping out of bed to hug his best friend. 

“Thank Jazz,” Danny corrected. “The Fentons nabbed me in a Thermos and she managed to distract them long enough to grab it and bolt.”

“Sam, is it okay if I sleep here tonight? I kinda threatened to tell the cops about some of the illegal things my parents do for research…” 

“Not only is it okay for you to sleep here tonight, I will buy you the best lawyers in Illinois to help if you go through with that threat.” Sam leveled the most serious stare a fourteen-year-old girl could manage. “I’m so serious, I can and will take advantage of my parents’ money to fuck up your parents. My room’s across the hall, let’s get you some pajamas now.”